


Fortune's Favor

by Winterling42



Series: I am also a We [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 02:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19880131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Caleb gets curious about his new cluster despite himself. Molly follows him asking inconvenient questions.





	Fortune's Favor

“Fortunes, anyone, hear your fortunes told! Only five euros to know what the future has in store for you!” Bren watched from across the busy walkway as a dark-skinned man did card tricks at his heavily embroidered tablecloth. People slowed to watch as the battered tarot cards slid and flew around the table as if possessed, and all the while the man’s sales pitch never faltered. 

“Ah, you ma’am, surely you have a few questions you’d like answered sooner rather than later? Sir, don’t you want to know about the success of that business venture of yours? Come now, just five euro for all of life’s mysteries, you can’t pass that up.”

Bren had known the moment he arrived that this bright hawk of a man was one of his new cluster. He could feel the pull of the fortune teller’s emotions; happiness, mostly, and an intense pride in his work. He loved the showing of it, the looks and the attention both good and bad. It took him almost ten minutes to notice Bren, standing in the shadow of a tent on the other side of the grassy path. His smile faltered then, a barely perceptible twitch of uncertainty, and his endless banter stuttered to a halt. 

Bren had stopped taking blockers because he wanted to know a little bit about his seven new liabilities, but he was not particularly interested in talking or getting to know them. He turned and slid away between two tents, making his mind very small and quiet in an attempt to sever the visiting. 

“Hey!” The fortune teller called after him, picking up on some of the bond between them. “Hey you!” Bren turned another corner and was back in the tunnels under Berlin, focusing on old concrete and the smell of rain. He left the circus behind, but not the senseate, whose boots echoed sharply off the walls. 

“I _said_ , hey!” A thin hand closed on his shoulder, and Bren let himself be stopped. “Who the hell do you think you are?” 

“Caleb Widogast.” From this close, Bren could see faint scars across the man’s chest and up his neck, could smell an unfamiliar cologne trying to mask marijuana smoke. Bren sighed and brushed the man’s hand away, easily enough as he gaped around the dimly lit tunnel. “I was not trying to, to stalk you. Or something.”

“No?” Then why were you doing such a good job LURKING. What...where the fuck are we?” 

“Berlin,” Bren said, shortly. “And I would like very much if you were _not_ here, actually.” He turned and kept walking, back towards the nest he’d made in an abandoned stairwell. He’d be out of the city before dawn, though there was nowhere to go. 

“I’ve seen other people like you,” the fortune teller said, jogging a few steps to catch up and walk next to him. “Well, not like you. But you know, visions. Why were you watching me? I’m Mollymauk, by the way. Mollymauk Tealeaf.” 

Bren glared at him out of the corners of his eyes. The last thing he wanted was this person’s name, this flamboyant stranger who Bren did _not_ want to know. At all. He didn’t want to know his name, or feel the curiosity running sharp between them, or acknowledge the smile that gleamed at him from across the way. A fox’s smile, his father would have said. Very white and dangerous. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Caleb Widogast,” Mollymauk continued, pointedly pausing for Bren to respond. He didn’t. He was out of blockers, but he could pick up most of the necessary ingredients at a pharmacy on the way to the train station. And the things he _couldn’t_ find at a pharmacy he could acquire from dealers here in the city. He didn’t want anyone knowing where he was headed next, especially since he could feel the bonds to Astrid and Eodwulf beginning to tremble. 

“So what’s your deal, Mr. Silent Type?” Mollymauk skipped past him and peered into the corners of the empty tunnel, making Bren stop in his tracks. Even if he was going to abandon it immediately, he was reluctant to show his hiding place to this carnie, nosy as he was. He didn’t seem to _need_ Bren to answer, either, just kept glancing over to see his reactions. “I mean, most hobos don’t sound like college professors with a German bug up their nose. The accent makes sense, I suppose, but what’s with the decor? I mean, you could be anywhere, really. So I ask again, and I _do_ expect an answer. What's your deal, Caleb Widogast?” 

Frozen in the middle of the hallway, Bren had only watched as Mollymauk danced closer, until they were face to face again. There was something of a snake’s grace in the fortune teller’s movements, lithe and wary in his approach. 

Bren swallowed his instinctive flinch and met the man head on, though his eyes remained stubbornly fixed on his chin. “I have no deal, Mollymauk Tealeaf.” 

“Why are you lying?” Mollymauk barely breathed the words, but Bren heard them anyway. He couldn’t untwist his face into something more trustworthy before someone not here called out, “Molly!” And when the fortune teller turned, he was alone among the tents. Bren, by himself in the cool dark underground, breathed a sigh of relief and started running through the steps he’d need to make more blockers.


End file.
